Ahrefs’ Digest #209: LLM optimization, Tabloid technique, and more

Welcome to a new edition of the Ahrefs’ Digest.

Here’s our meme of the week:

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Quick SEO news

• ChatGPT Search is powered by Bing's index.
• Google tests a new 'Highlight' button that allows users to highlight text within the snippet in AIOs, which then triggers another related search.
• AI Overview results are now showing up in People Also Ask.
• Ecosia and Qwant are partnering to build a European search index and reduce their dependence on U.S. Big Tech firms.
• New Internet rules will block AI training bots.

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Best of the week

LLMO: 10 Ways to Work Your Brand Into AI Answers: You might resent AI chatbots for reducing your traffic share or poaching your intellectual property, but pretty soon you won’t be able to ignore them. Use these tactics to get into AI conversations just in time for the gold rush of LLMO.

What I Learned From Ahrefs Evolve: 4 Marketing Things I’m Doing Differently: Ahrefs Evolve may be over, but it’s still vivid in my mind. My favorite memory is meeting everyone at the event—that’s the main reason why people attend conferences, right? I learned a lot from the speakers too, personally. My biggest takeaway: SEO is finally returning to being part of marketing.

Spurious Correlations: Just to remind us—especially SEOs—that correlation isn’t causation.

The Tabloid Technique: How to Easily Land Local Links With Digital PR: Local newspapers will link to anything. Take advantage of this by using Josh’s Tabloid Technique—Find a newsworthy topic, pull local data, and reach out to local journalists.

Why Great Marketing is Risky as Hell: The fundamental goal of marketing is to stand out and differentiate ourselves from our competitors. Yet, if you look at the world of marketing right now, you’ll think that our job is to replicate. Marketing wasn’t meant to be a race to the bottom, where every brand copies the same formula, optimizes for the same algorithms, and makes little tweaks endlessly. As marketers, we should take risks, be bold, and go for “bets”... even if they might not work out. When everyone zigs, you zag.

You Don't Need to Build a Personal Brand: “Your personal brand is a lagging indicator of you doing great, meaningful work.”

The 50 Fastest-Growing AI Companies: We analyzed the branded search growth of 3,000 software companies to discover the fastest-growing AI companies around.

12 Low-Hanging Fruit SEO Tactics You Can Implement Today: Here are 12 SEO quick wins you can implement today.

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Latest on YouTube

Debunking 11 Common Digital Marketing Myths You Thought Were True

With over 100 years of combined experience, our panel of digital marketing experts debunk 11 common myths that people actually believe.

See you next week,
Si Quan

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